THE driver of a truck involved in Saturday's horrific collision with a train in Dandenong appears to have smashed straight through level crossing boom gates

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The 69-year-old truck driver...walked away unhurt, but the crash left a 43-year-old Cranbourne man on board the train dead - the first death of a passenger on Melbourne's electrified rail system in decades.

Mr King's wife is also a driver for Metro but is on maternity leave, and his brother is a Metro driver as well.

Thirty passengers were on the train, and the crash sent 12 of them and the driver to hospital.

It all but destroyed half of a six-carriage train, and left three more trains marooned in rail yards at Cranbourne, unable to travel to the city for at least five days while Metro repairs damaged track and the crossing.